Recipe: Peanut Butter Cookies

I had a serious craving for chewy peanut butter cookies one night. I started into this recipe after dinner and it was heaven in the kitchen. I couldn't help but satisfy my craving along the way - spoonfuls of this delicious peanut buttery, doughy goodness was just down-right orgas... I mean, perfect. (While writing this post, I was advised by a very good friend that maybe the word 'pleasurable' was the most appropriate term. Ahem... moving on.)

I am assuming its second nature to be naturally attracted to the delicious taste of dough. Why else would Dairy Queen have a chocolate chip cookie dough blizzard? Or a classic form of ice cream be cookie dough? I am hoping this is true. Otherwise, my love for cookie dough comes straight from my Mother, who in her teens, was known to whip up some cookies but never actually produce baked goods... isn't that right Mom??

Anyways, getting back to the recipe, here's the details:

Ingredients
1 cup butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup natural peanut butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 salt

In your stand mixers bowl, add softened butter. Lesson of the day: If you forget to 'soften your butter' earlier than you really should have, cut up the butter into smaller pieces. This way it warms up faster. I don't recommend microwaving it, that never works as well.

Attach the stand mixer bowl, wire whip and shield onto your stand mixer. Beat the butter on Speed 4 - 6 until light and fluffy. Through the convenient shoot of your shield add the brown and granulated sugars, then add the peanut butter and eggs, one at a time, then beat in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. With the Stand mixer still mixing at about Speed 4, slowly add the flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture, allowing the stand mixer to stir until blended.

Every once and a while you may choose to stop the stand mixer and use a spatula to scrape dough from the sides of the stand mixer bowl, allowing for better mixing.

Once mixed thoroughly, turn the stand mixer off and scoop dough by rounded tablespoons, rolling into balls then placing on a parchment lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. (on my baking sheet this meant about 3 across each row and about 5 rows).

With a fork, press each ball down making a criss-cross pattern. You are aiming to flatten these balls out to about 1/2 inch.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes. If you like your cookies chewy then pull the cookies out from the oven while they seem soft in the middle but just starting to firm up around the edges. If you like your cookies firmer, then you are looking for firm edge and a slightly firm middle.

Let cool on a cooling rack. OR.... eat immediately with some milk (on the rocks - seriously people - its the only way to go... a habit also attributed to my sweet Mommy.)

These cookies freeze really well. I have another quirky habit of eating things frozen (i.e. french fries and desserts such as cookies). Even when these cookies are frozen, you can easily satisfy your craving with a cold one.


Recipe in Photos:

Cutting up the butter into smaller chunks helps it to soften faster

The butter after it has been 'smoothed'

In the orange bowl is the flower mixture, in the stand mixer bowl is the peanut butter mixture, just before combining

The dough, just before rolling...mmmmmm

The cookies fresh from the oven. Notice the forked pattern. 

Lessons Learned:

• its so much easier to convince yourself of feeding your guilty dessert craving when you have the stand mixer on your side to help you out. Turns out the big plus to this thing is that you can be mixing remotely, thereby freeing your hands to do other things like mix the flour up while the butter is softening....magic 
• Thanks to my health conscious husband, I will be taking a vacation from the dessert making... after complaining to him about a "sore belly from eating too many cookies" it appears as though I have been cut off from making sweets. From here on in, I must be more creative with my cooking... look for healthier options in the future
• Speaking about healthy... have you tried natural peanut butter?!? Kraft now makes an all-peanut butter and its fantastic. I used it in this recipe which makes for a slightly less sugar-packed cookie. Does that count as healthy, Joey?

The stand mixer certainly made it easier to justify making the cookies - "Oh it won't take me long with my mixer!" But I guess it would have been just as easy with a hand-held mixer. Hence the two whisk rating